Oceana CEOs are stuck in the past.

The letter by Andrew Sharpless and Alex Muñoz deliberately muddies thewaters in the discussion about salmon farming, and shows that the two CEOsof Oceana are stuck in the past.

They argue that farmed salmon are not sustainable because they are fed wildfish, and suggest increasing wild stock abundance. How? By increasinghatchery outputs, which will compete with truly wild fish?

And what do they think wild salmon eat? How could these two CEOs ignorethe concept of trophic levels taught by Dr. Daniel Pauly, member of theirown Oceana board?

The ocean food chain is divided into trophic levels, which increase by afactor of 10 each level. That means wild salmon eat 10 times their weightin small wild fish. Our farmed salmon currently eat only 1.1 times theirown weight in small wild fish, and that number is decreasing.

Sharpless and Muñoz ignore this fact, and the many advances made inaquaculture over the past decade which have made this possible. They arestuck in the past and refuse to ignore how the evolution of salmon farmingis making it one of the most sustainable forms of food production